Technical Notices

For members currently receiving GSN SD from AMC-11, AMC-11 is at end of life this year. To ensure that your GSN SD Feed remains uninterrupted, you will need to replace your AMC-11 feed with one of two options, no later than September 1, 2019.

Please see attached notice for more information and steps to begin this transition.

On Tuesday, June 25, 2019, during their standard 4 AM ET - 7 AM ET maintenance window, NBCU will be changing the FEC on their satellite uplinks from 3/4 to 5/6. Please see attached notice for networks affected and more information.

If your receiver is authorized on the current satellite, it will already be authorized for use on the new satellite, SES-1. You will have until October 15, 2019 to move onto SES-1 when Crown Media will permanently discontinue the AMC-11 feed.

Please find Tech Sheet and FAQ's about the migration, attached. For assistance with your move to SES-1, Crown Media has a 24/7 helpline available at 203-965-6100.

Stingray Music will be updating the stations included in their 25-channel package to include their most popular channels effective May 1, 2019. Changes and new lineup is attached. Please contact your EPG provider to update your TV lineup in the guide.

Pursuit Channel has notified NCTC that they will transition to SES-1. Dual illumination began on March 29, 2019 and will cease on June 15, 2019. Please see attached tech spec sheet for more information.

Effective August 20, 2019, Shorts HD will cease satellite delivery and will be distributed over IP via Zixi technology. In order to continue receiving the signal after the delivery change date, you will need to instal Zixi-compliant, professional decoders/IRD's or PC servers to run Zixi software. Please see attached notice for more details and information.

Effective May 31, 2019, AMC will be ceasing the SD feed for BBC World News currently transmitted on the Galaxy 13 satellite. The HD Feed also transmitted on Galaxy 13 is NOT affected by this change.

In order to continue uninterrupted reception of BBC World News, all affiliates currently taking the SD feed from Galaxy 13 will need to retune to the HD feed, full reception parameters are provided in the attached notice.

Olympusat will be terminating its distribution of Altavision effective April 14, 2019 at Noon EST. Olympusat will be replacing Altavision with Canal 44 de Juarez. If you would like to launch Canal 44 de Juarez, you will need to submit the launch paperwork to NCTC via PPS.

As previously announced HITS will be performing a compression upgrade to both the QSD and QHD platforms in 2nd Quarter of 2019. This transition will be rescheduled to begin on April 29, 2019 and extended until July 15, 2019 (previously rescheduled to begin May 1, 2019). Please see attached notice for more information.

All HBO and Cinemax feeds on Galaxy 14, Transponder 8 will be transitioning to Galaxy 15, Transponder 18 beginning March 4, 2019, to be completed by March 28, 2019. Please see attached notice for action required for this transition.

Playboy TV will be making some changes to the transmission of Playboy TV SD/HD and Playboy TV en Espanol SD/HD. These changes are anticipated to be completed by May 27, 2019. Please see attached notice for more information.

On Tuesday, March 26, 2019, NBCU will be changing its DTMF tone sequence for local ad insertion for both SD and HD and East/West feeds (where applicable) to a standard tone sequence for all networks. Please see attached notice for more information.

HITS has been notified by Mood Media that they are terminating the Digital Music Express Affiliation agreement with HITS as of December 31, 2018. HITS is currently evaluating options for a replacement music service on the HITS platform. To allow systems to determine solutions for a music service, HITS and Mood Media have agreed to continue distribution of the DMX service on HITS through March 31, 2019.

AMC Networks will be transitioning their SD and HD networks (AMC, WE, IFC, Sundance, and BBC America) to an HD Only platform. Please fill out the information requested by December 15, 2018 so that AMC can determine if the headend is qualified for a new receiver. Please see attached notice for more information and completion dates.

On Friday, October 19th Arris announced that it is ceasing operations for their QT and QT+ access control platform at the end of 2019. There are about 60 NCTC Members affected by this announcement with an approximate STB count of 20,000 on the QT/QT+ access control platform. There are currently two migration options for operators:

Viacom services currently on AMC-11, Transponders 21, 15, and 18 are being transitioned to transponders on SES-11 effective November 21, 2018. For services currently on AMC-11, Transponder 15 and 21, the dual illumination period will begin on September 4, 2018. For services currently on AMC-11, Transponder 18, the dual illumination period will begin on or about October 8, 2018. See attached notice for more information.

Effective November 5, 2018, HBO will cease distribution of ALL SD HBO and Cinemax main and multiplex feeds found on Galaxy 15, Transponders 18 and 23. If you are currently authorized to receive any of these MPEG-2 SD services and you have not yet coordinated replacement receivers with HBO OR if you have received replacement receivers from HBO but they are not yet authorized, please contact the HBO Affiliate Hotline at (212) 512-5666. Please see attached notice for more information.

Comcast Technology Solutions (“CTS”) recently received notice from its satellite vendor, SES, that an unanticipated anomaly impacted the AMC-18 satellite that transmits content for your HITS service. SES believes it has corrected the anomaly and expects to continue operating AMC-18 with the full payload until it is replaced by a new satellite, SES-11, in late November 2017.

The transition from AMC-18 to SES-11 is currently planned for the morning of November 28, 2017. Maintenance will be scheduled Tuesday, November 28th, from 0300-0700 EST. Services may experience a 15 to 30 second video outage as each transponder is transitioned to the new satellite.